Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.5
Overall		5.0

Samson & Delilah Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov June 30, 2010

Winner of Camera d’Or award for best first feature film at the Cannes Film Festival, Warwick Thornton's "Samson and Delilah" (2009) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Trinity Home Entertainment. The supplemental features on the disc include behind the scenes featurette; Q&A session with director Warwick Thornton; cast and crew interviews; four short films directed by Warwick Thornton; and trailers. In English and Warlpiri, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

Alone

Samson and Delilah is a wonderful film about two young lovers living in a small Aboriginal community somewhere in the Central Australian desert. Time seems to have stopped there – no one seems interested in knowing what day it is, there are no TVs, and no one is delivering mail. Piles of trash are all over the place.

Delilah (Marissa Gibson) lives with her aged and seriously sick mother (Mitjili Gibson). Most of the time the two paint artworks which they sell to art dealers in Alice Springs – for a fraction of what they are later on sold to art collectors. Delilah and her mother are so poor that they can only afford canned food.

Samson (Rowan McNamara), a neighbor, likes Delilah but is too shy to talk to her. Delilah likes him too, but thinks that he is strange because he spends most of his time sniffing petrol and listening to his cheap radio. Occasionally he also fights with his brother and his band mates because each morning they wake him up playing their one and only ska hit.

Delilah’s mother dies and she is brutally beaten by her relatives, who blame her for her death. Samson also gets beaten after he breaks up his brother’s electric guitar. Alienated from the community, the two jump in an old truck and head to Alice Springs.

Without money or food, Delilah and Samson end up in a bad part of the city, under a bridge, where they befriend Gonzo (Scott Thornton), a homeless drunk. He shares some of his canned food with them, but there isn’t enough for everyone.

Delilah attempts to sell a painting to the local art galleries whilst Samson gets high sniffing petrol. While wandering around the city, however, a group of teenagers abduct Delilah to have some fun with her. Heartbroken, Samson goes back to Gonzo’s place where he collapses. Eventually, Delilah returns and the two head back to the desert, hoping to find a friendlier place to settle down and heal their wounds.

Winner of Camera d’Or award for best first feature film at the Cannes Film Festival and Australia’s official entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards in 2010, Warwick Thornton’s Samson and Delilah is a tragic yet strikingly beautiful neorealistic film that works on multiple levels. Shot with only a few lines of dialog, it celebrates and critiques a culture and people that literally appear to have been forgotten.

The film has a dated look, reminding of Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout, and at the same time a sense of quiet urgency and desperation that is quite similar to the one introduced in Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit-Proof Fence. The film also shares a similarly unpretentious tone that allows it to deliver a powerful message without being overly sentimental.

The acting is superb. Marissa Gibson and Rowan McNamara could not have been any more convincing. Their relationship is so open, honest and beautiful that it is impossible for one not to feel about them. The scene at the end of the film Delilah washes Samson’s dirty body is truly special.

With Samson and Delilah Australian director Warwick Thornton has set the bar so high it would be very interesting to see what subject his next film tackles. Obviously, he is a tremendous talent with an incredible eye for capturing the beauty of his homeland.

Note: In 2009, Samson and Delilah won the prestigious Camera d’Or award. The film also won seven AFI (Australian Film Institute) awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Cinematography.

Samson & Delilah Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Warwick Thornton's Samson and Delilah arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Trinity Home Entertainment.

This is a very strong high-definition transfer. Fine object detail is excellent, clarity impeccable and contrast levels very impressive throughout the entire film. The color-scheme is also striking - yellows, blues, greens, brown, blacks and whites are lush and well saturated yet natural looking. Edge-enhancement and macroblocking are never a serious issue of concern. I also did not see any disturbing traces of banding or artifacting. There are no serious stability issues either. In fact, blown through a digital projector the image is one of the tightest and crispest I have ever seen on Blu-ray; it is indeed quite remarkable. Finally, I did not see any transfer related anomalies to report in this review. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your PS3 or SA regardless of your geographical location. For the record, there is no problematic PAL or 1080/50i content preceding the disc's main menu).

Samson & Delilah Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two audio tracks on this Blu-ray disc: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (with portions of Warlpiri) and English LPCM 2.0. For the record, Trinity Home Entertainment have provided optional English subtitles for the main feature. When turned on, however, they appear only when Warlpiri is spoken.

There is an extremely limited amount of dialog in Samson and Delilah, and my impression is that the English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track serves the film as best as it possibly can. Generally speaking, the rear channels are not overly active but nevertheless effective, and the bass strong and punchy (there is one specific scene during the second half of the film that caught me by surprise where the bass is notably strong). The little dialog there is in the film is clean, stable, crisp and easy to follow.

The English LPCM 2.0 fares very well against the English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. During the footage from the outback I could hardly distinguish the two. There are, however, a few scenes where the depth and slightly stronger dynamic amplitude of the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track are preferable.

Samson & Delilah Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Note: The supplemental features on this Blu-ray disc are encoded in PAL. Therefore, if you reside in North America, or another region where PAL is not supported, you must have a Region-Free player capable of converting PAL to NTSC, or a TV set capable of receiving native PAL data, in order to view them.

Q&A - a short introduction to the film by director Warwick Thornton. The director also recalls what it was like to grow up on the streets of Alice Springs. In English, not subtitled. (12 min, PAL).

Interviews - a collage of short interviews with director Warwick Thornton (10 min), producer Kath Shelper (7 min), actress Marissa Gibson (2 min), and actor Rowan McNamara (3 min). In English, not subtitled.

Behind the scenes - raw footage from the shooting of the film. In English, not subtitled. (20 min).

Short films - four short films by director Warwick Thornton:

-- Green Bush (2005), winner of the Panorama Short Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, follows a young Australian Aboriginal DJ as he makes an important discovery. In English, not subtitled. Color. (27 min).

-- Payback (1996) is about an imprisoned Aboriginal man who has a strange vision. B&W. (11 min).

-- Nana (2007), winner of Crystal Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, is about a young girl living in Alice Springs. In English, not subtitled. Color. (6 min).

-- Mimi (2002) a hilarious about white art collectors with plenty of money and very little taste. In English, not subtitled. Color. (15 min).

Trailers -

-- UK theatrical trailer - (3 min).
-- Survival international trailer - (2 min).

Samson & Delilah Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Samson and Delilah is a work of great beauty, a film that has rightfully made many Australians proud. I urge you to consider adding it to your libraries as soon as you can. The Blu-ray disc herein reviewed, courtesy of British distributors Trinity Home Entertainment, looks and sounds fantastic. It is also loaded with terrific supplemental features. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.